Together by Christmas

“I care about you, Miranda.

You know that.”

He’d always cared, but she didn’t know that. These past few weeks, that old passion of his had been rejuvenated. He’d dared to dream that she might return some of his feelings. She seemed to enjoy his company. And he didn’t think he’d imagined the sexual energy between them all evening. Not judging by the conspiratorial wink he’d gotten from a friend as he was going out the door.

Perhaps Miranda’s feelings for him just weren’t strong enough yet….

No, that really wasn’t the problem. She was still holding on. To Chad. To the losses of her past. And he had no idea how to make her let go.

“Warren, you’re not upset with me, are you?”

“Absolutely not.” He wasn’t going to push her. That would be the dumbest mistake he could make. “I don’t want you to think I planned for anything to happen between us. Though I won’t deny I hoped it would….”

She hugged him. “You’re a wonderful guy, Warren. I’m going to be very jealous when some lucky woman captures your heart and I’ve lost you forever.”

Dear Reader,

Several years ago, when I wrote A Daughter’s Place, I knew I would one day write more books set in the mostly fictional town of Chatsworth, Saskatchewan. And indeed, when I decided I wanted to tell the story of a woman who just can’t get over the first guy she fell in love with—a guy who married another woman, and is still married to that woman—Chatsworth seemed the perfect setting.

It is the kind of place where it’s hard to keep a secret. Your neighbors always know, and if they don’t, they think they know. You can’t hide your past in a place like Chatsworth. People remember which kid was the brain, the athlete, the loner, which girl was most popular and which high school sweethearts were destined to stay together.

Of course, people grow after high school. They change. And that’s what has happened to the class of 1990. As circumstances conspire to bring five of the original eleven graduating students together, they’ll have an opportunity to examine who they really are…and whom they really love.

Hope you enjoy the story and that you are able to spend your Christmas with the ones you love.

Happy holidays!

C.J. Carmichael

P.S. I’d love to hear from you. Please send mail to the following Canadian address: #1754 - 246 Stewart Green S.W., Calgary, Alberta, T3H 3C8, Canada. Or e-mail me at [e-mail].

Together by Christmas

C.J. Carmichael

www.millsandboon.co.uk

A while ago I exchanged some touching correspondence

with Dianne, a reader. She and her husband were mourning

the loss of their son in a tragic car accident.

This book is dedicated to the memory of Davin.

His parents want him to know:

“You always were, and still remain, the light of our lives.

Until we meet again…”

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER ONE

MIRANDA JAMES PUSHED aside the wicker basket of crusty rolls at the center of the table and replaced it with her high school yearbook, open to the page with photos of her graduating class.

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me. But we really did go to school together. Grades one through twelve. See?” She pointed to Warren’s picture first, then her own.

Catherine Cox, producer at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, peered through dark-framed glasses at the caption beneath the photo. “‘Warren Addison,’” she read, squinting at the small print. “‘Favorite subject: anything to do with books. Nickname: Warty.’”

She shifted her attention to Miranda. “Warty? Warren Addison had warts?”

“No. A pet frog in grade eight.” Miranda tapped her pen against the saltshaker, impatient to move on. But Catherine was scrutinizing the yearbook again, holding it close to the window, where the light was better.

“Trust you to be gorgeous even in high school. Let’s see what they wrote about you….”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Miranda reached for the book, but Catherine shifted it just beyond her grasp.

“‘Miranda James,’” she began, quoting the couplet beneath the photo, “‘Most beautiful and the boys’ favorite pick. If she wasn’t so nice, she’d make us sick.’”

“Give that here!”

Catherine relinquished the book, laughing. The husky sound caught the attention of two men lunching at a nearby table. Their glances flickered over Catherine and settled on Miranda.

“Okay, you went to school with Warren Addison,” Catherine conceded. “But what makes you think he’ll be onside for a video biography? I’ve spoken to the publicist at his publishing house and he’s notoriously uncooperative when it comes to promoting his own work. Everyone but him is talking about Where It Began. He wouldn’t even return Oprah’s call when she asked him to appear on her show.”

“We grew up together, Catherine. I heard him read the first story he ever wrote to the class.”

Well, she probably had, she just couldn’t remember.

“Don’t worry about me not being able to deliver,” she continued. “The challenge will be editing all the material down to a reasonable length.”

Catherine opened her briefcase. “I suppose if anyone can do this, it’s you. Here. I had Accounting cut you a check.”

Thrilled, Miranda accepted the check before Catherine could change her mind. None of her other projects had ever been accepted this easily.

“I’d love to chat longer, but I have another meeting.” Catherine laid a fifty on the table to cover lunch. “Would you mind saving a copy of the bill for me? I need to run, but there’s no reason you shouldn’t stay and enjoy dessert and coffee.”

“Thanks, Catherine.” For everything, she wanted to add. But the svelte producer was already hustling out of the restaurant. The two men at the next table noticed her departure, too. One of them tried to catch Miranda’s eye, but she gazed deliberately down at the yearbook still in her hands.

“Can I get you anything else?” The server was back, whisking away the used wineglasses and salad plates.

“Mmm…” She glanced up from the yearbook. “An espresso, please?”

“Certainly.”

She hadn’t looked at this book for years…probably not since her mother, in one of her house-cleaning frenzies, had boxed it with a collection of other childhood mementos and shipped it to Toronto. She flipped through the glossy pages, finally returning to the photos of the 1990 graduation class.

A sweet ache lodged behind her ribs. She recognized the feeling as nostalgia, but cynically, she had to wonder. Did she yearn for what had been? Or for what never could be?

She focused on the picture of Chad English. With his smooth blond hair, tanned skin and even features he didn’t need his killer smile to stand out from the crowd. Still, he had it. As well as eyes born to flirt. She felt he was watching her from the yearbook page, about to include her in a fabulous secret.

Ah, Chad.

If she’d been the most popular girl in that small-town class of eleven students, he’d definitely been the most popular guy. Was she the only one who had seen them as the perfect couple? It seemed she’d dated just about all the guys in her grade and the one above it at one time or another. Except Chad. And Warren, of course, but he didn’t count, because as far as she knew, he’d never asked any of the girls out.

Maybe he was gay. Mentally filing the idea for future consideration, she refocused on Chad.

Why had he never asked her out? She’d always wondered. They’d been good friends since grade seven—still were good friends. But while he’d flirted plenty, he’d never taken their relationship that one crucial step further.

Of course, after his marriage to Bernie, Miranda had filed her feelings for him away as inappropriate. They’d continued their friendship, but she’d been cautious not to overstep the bounds of appropriateness.

Despite her circumspection, she knew Bernie didn’t like her. Actually, the other woman never had. Miranda picked out the photo of the petite girl with the light brown hair. Cute, bordering on pretty, but not a woman to turn a man’s head. Yet she’d turned Chad’s, when Miranda never had.

Oh, don’t start feeling sorry for yourself. This is ancient history…. The person she was supposed to be interested in right now had had nothing to do with all of that.

She studied Warren’s photo again. His dark hair was unruly, curling around his ears and down to his collar. In his long, thin face, his nose stood out prominently.

A different emotion stirred inside her now. Uncomfortable, unsettling. Warren had always had that effect, she remembered.

He hadn’t been an attractive kid. Especially compared with… Miranda’s gaze slid to Chad’s photo, then back to Warren’s. His recent success couldn’t help but have an impact on her assessment. Those dark-gray eyes she’d once found disconcerting now gleamed with intelligence and wit. The smile she’d thought of as crooked sported an ironic twist.

She stared a few minutes longer, but the photograph refused to yield anything more. She snapped the book shut and returned it to her briefcase, frustrated that of all her classmates, Warren was the one she’d known the least.

“Your espresso, miss.”

She smiled her thanks to the unobtrusive server before taking a sip.

Yes, Warren had been the most enigmatic of her classmates, and yet, he would be the subject of her next video biography. The check from the CBC, which she now carefully stowed in a zipper compartment of her purse, made it official, even though the idea had come to her only a week ago, during her Sunday phone call to her mother.

Annie James, who still lived in the small town in Saskatchewan where Miranda had grown up, had asked, “You remember Warren Addison?”

“Sure I do, Mom.”

“He’s back in Chatsworth. They say that book he wrote is a real blockbuster. They say there’s a producer who wants to make it into a movie.”

“I know. Where It Began is topping the bestseller lists all over North America.” She’d read the novel and loved it, found it absolutely magical.

“Well, he’s living on his parents’ farm, in that old clapboard the Addisons abandoned when they retired to Victoria.”

According to the dust jacket of his book—which, frustratingly, had included no photo of the author— Warren had a master’s in English from the University of Toronto and now resided and worked in New York City. That he would choose to return to a backwater prairie town remained incomprehensible to Miranda.

“Whatever for?”

“Lucky says he’s working on his second book. The press wouldn’t give him any peace in New York.”

Good old Lucky. The gray-haired proprietor of Chatsworth’s tiny grocery store could always be counted on to hand out more than change and a receipt at the till.

After the call ended, Miranda had thought over her mother’s news. Between projects at the moment, she’d been on the hunt for a challenge. And this struck her as the perfect opportunity. She could do a video biography on Warren Addison and spend some time with her mother.

Annie hadn’t been the same since a heart attack last June. The specialist in Regina had diagnosed only minimal damage, but the scare had raised a specter of worry in the fifty-eight-year-old and had caused her to curtail her lifestyle as well as to revamp her diet.

Miranda was guiltily aware that she hadn’t seen her mother since that week in Regina when Annie had undergone a battery of medical tests. She’d known her mother was waiting for an invitation to Toronto, but she’d been afraid that Annie might end up staying permanently, and so she’d stalled.

Miranda traveling to Chatsworth, rather than Annie visiting Toronto, was definitely safer.

Mind made up to pursue this project, Miranda had begun her research. Typing “Warren Addison Author” into the Internet had yielded no official Web site. Likewise, the library had had little biographical information.

Which was perfect, from Miranda’s point of view. Apparently Warren was as much of an unknown to his fans as he was to her. A situation she fully intended to rectify.

Now, sipping her espresso, Miranda basked in anticipation of her upcoming project.

Of course, Warren could turn out to be a boring man with no layers to explore. Having read his book, however, she doubted that. What a wonderful coup for her career if she could reveal this man’s creative heart and soul to the world.

But what if Warren didn’t cooperate with her?

She pushed that uncertainty aside. They’d grown up together in the same small town. Of course he would.

A separate, larger anxiety gnawed at her. She hadn’t spent much time in Chatsworth since high school graduation. What would it be like? Chad and Bernie still lived in the small town. So did Adrienne Jenson, who’d also been in their class. Counting Warren and herself, that made five of the original eleven graduating students.

It would feel like stepping back in time. Not that such a thing was possible, of course. But if it was…

Miranda set down her empty cup. Cramming the receipt into her purse for Catherine, she once again ignored the smiles and raised eyebrows from the men at the table beside her as she strode through the busy restaurant.

Outside, a gust of wind whipped her skirt against her calves. She glanced up at the little section of sky that peeked out amid Toronto’s skyscrapers and saw rain clouds.

Unbidden, it came back to her—the way it had felt to be eighteen and in love with someone who didn’t love her back. The old longing hit her, a heavy weight in her chest.

The pattern of her life had been set during those years in Chatsworth. And the choices she’d made then had led her to this point: working in Toronto, living alone, pursuing happiness while trying to pretend to everyone around her that she’d already found it.

What if she could change the past?

For a moment she could smell chalk dust and musty old textbooks in the swirling city air. She was in math class and Warren Addison was sitting in the aisle next to hers. A loner, he’d rarely spoken in class. But when he had—here it was, her first distinct memory of him—he hadn’t bothered to raise his hand first.

The teachers had never let the rest of them get away with that. But they had him. Funny thing for her to remember.

The wind died and the rain started. Holding her briefcase over her head, Miranda beckoned to a passing cab. She had to get home. Had to start packing.

FROM THE METROPOLIS of Toronto, Ontario, Miranda had to travel west, more than twelve hundred miles, to reach Chatsworth, Saskatchewan. The sleepy prairie town lay just past the Manitoba border. The drive, through stark November landscape, promised to be long and exhausting, but Miranda couldn’t fly because she would definitely need her car once she arrived.

She set out on Wednesday with a suitcase of clothes, a bag of gifts she’d purchased early for Christmas and her equipment: a Canon XL1, extra lenses, wireless microphones, tripod, her portable Mac for editing.

Hopefully, she hadn’t forgotten anything, because if she had, she’d have to drive an extra two and a half hours southwest to Regina for replacements. Chatsworth’s isolation was one of the main reasons—other than her mother’s prodding for her to become a model or actress—that Miranda had left. Indeed, many of the young people raised there relocated after graduation. Now the prospect of spending two months in the small community brought on a claustrophobic anxiety she tried to ignore.

Her mother was waiting supper when she arrived at her destination on Friday night after several long days behind the wheel.

“You made it! I’ve been so worried. The weather reports say it’s snowing in Winnipeg.” Lovely as ever in a hand-knit sweater and stretch black jeans, Annie James offered her daughter a fragile hug and a peck on the cheek.

“Must have been after I passed through. I saw a few wispy clouds, but that was it.” She lugged her bags down the hall. “Same room?” she asked over her shoulder.

“Of course.”

“Same room” being a shrine to white French-provincial furniture, the best you could order from the Sears catalog. At least her mother had removed the canopy. Cleaning that thing year after year must have been hell.

Miranda settled her bags at the foot of the bed, then put her purse on the dresser, next to the phone her parents had given her for her thirteenth birthday. How many hours had she spent on that thing? Mostly talking to Chad….

She went to the washroom, and when she emerged, Annie was removing her green-bean casserole from the oven.

“You haven’t cooked this big meal for just the two of us?” A lentil casserole sat steaming on the table, next to the beans, a green salad and cauliflower.

“This is a special occasion. I even made brownies for dessert—low fat, unfortunately, thanks to my diet.”

“Sticking to it, are you? That’s great.” They discussed Annie’s health for a while, then moved on to Miranda’s work. Annie wasn’t very interested in the video on the Canadian artist Harry Palmer, which Miranda had just finished collaborating on with his son and the CBC. But Annie did have some input to offer on the upcoming project.

“You realize Warren’s book is going to be made into a movie?”

“You mentioned the possibility on the phone.”

“Well, I’ve been wondering. There might be a role for you.” Her mother’s eyes sparkled. “After we spoke, I took the book out of the library and read it. I could see you in the lead, playing Olena. You’re the right age and the description is you to a tee!”

“Oh, Mom.” Annie had never recovered from her disappointment when Miranda dropped modeling to study film at Concordia University in Montreal. While she’d accepted that Miranda was now too old for modeling, she frequently reminded her daughter it wasn’t too late for acting. In her opinion, her beautiful daughter belonged in front of a camera, not behind it.

“What’s the matter?”

“I talked to Warren’s agent about the film rights. Yes, they’ve been sold, but the screenplay hasn’t even been written yet. Warren insists that he wants to do it himself, and first he has to finish his current book.”

“All the better. You need to get your name in early. Just mention the idea to Warren when you interview him for that video of yours.”

“I have no acting experience.”

“You’ve taken several classes. And you did that commercial.”

“Right.” She ought to command about a million for a picture, based on those qualifications.

Her mother smiled, assuming that one word meant Miranda had agreed with everything she’d just said.

“So when are you planning to meet with Warren?”

“Tomorrow. You’ll have to help me figure out how to get to his farm.” Miranda had only an idea of the general direction.

“I’ll draw you a map. It’s not that hard, but it is far. About twelve miles from town, and at least two miles from the closest neighbors, the Brownings. Frankly, I can’t understand why any sane person with a choice would want to live on his own in such an isolated place.

“In fact,” Annie continued, “I’m not at all sure you should be going out to his farm to conduct your interviews. Couldn’t he drive into town?”

Miranda dug deep for patience. Something she suspected she was going to need a lot of this next little while.

“Mom, this video isn’t something I can accomplish in a couple of short interviews. I need to hang around him, see how he lives, how he works.”

Discovering what made Warren Addison tick would take time. But she had two months, and she’d succeed. The completed video would be her Christmas present to herself.

Vegetables were silently passed back and forth; Miranda topped up her mother’s wine from one of the bottles she’d stashed in the trunk of her Volkswagen.

“The Brownings had a baby boy last year,” Annie said finally. “Did I tell you?”

“Yes.” Miranda was glad for Gibson and Libby. They both had daughters from previous relationships. According to Chad, they wouldn’t necessarily stop at three, either.

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard about poor Chad and Bernie English.”

The piece of cauliflower in her mouth suddenly felt like a cork stuck in her throat. Miranda coughed, reached for her wineglass.

“Are you okay?”

Miranda waved a hand dismissively. “What about Chad and Bernie?”

“Oh, it’s just terrible. His poor mother is so upset. You know Dorothy belongs to my bridge group.”

“Mother. What happened?”

“Why, Bernie booted Chad out of the house.” Annie James looked as if Miranda was a little slow not to have figured this out on her own. “After Dorothy left last Wednesday, one of the ladies said she’d heard Chad had been cheating on Bernie.”

“Cheating?”

“No one knows who the woman is. At least not yet. I’m sure the truth will come out eventually.”

Miranda set down her fork, trying to absorb this news. Something major must have happened for Bernie to have kicked out Chad. But an affair? The very idea made Miranda sick. She could only imagine how much worse Bernie would feel.

And how could any of this be true? She’d e-mailed Chad the night before she’d left Toronto and had had a reply from him the following morning.

He hadn’t mentioned a word about any troubles with Bernie. Her mother had to have gotten this wrong. The bridge ladies must have been doing too much raising and doubling—and not with cards, either.

“That’s very hard to believe, Mom. Bernie and Chad have been married for years.”

“You think that’s any guarantee?” Her mother’s tone was sharp as she glanced at the sideboard, where they’d once kept their only family photograph.

“I suppose not. But—” Bernie and Chad? “Where’s he staying, then?”

“Chad? Not at his mother’s—you can be sure of that. Dorothy is furious with him.”

“But Chad is her son.” And she’d always doted on him over his two older sisters.

“Dorothy’s granddaughter’s well-being is at stake here, too,” Annie reminded her.

“Yes, of course. But if Chad isn’t staying with his mother…”

“He’s shacked up at the clubhouse on his golf course. According to Dorothy, he was spending most of his time there, anyway. Probably that’s where he and this other woman have their rendezvous….”

Miranda held back the temptation to roll her eyes at her mother’s leap in logic.

“He’s a grown man, Mom. Besides, do you have any proof that he’s been unfaithful?”

“Proof? This isn’t a court case, Miranda.”

Just as she’d thought. The rumors were baseless. If anything untoward was going on, Miranda would have picked it up in her regular e-mails with Chad, or heard something different in his voice during their more occasional phone calls.

Her mother raised her wineglass with a flourish. “My dear, you’ve been doing biographies long enough now. You should have a better grasp of human nature. When marriages break up for no apparent reason, you can be sure one of the parties has a replacement waiting in the wings.”

For a moment Miranda felt a flicker of doubt. But this was Chad they were talking about. “Yes, often… But I’m sure there are times when a couple realize their marriage was just not meant to be.”